[By popular request, for your amusement. See:
http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html]
[Author unknown, alas:]
READ THIS:
Goodtimes will re-write your hard drive. Not only that, but it will
scramble any disks that are even close to your computer. It will
recalibrate your refrigerator's coolness setting so all your ice cream
goes melty. It will demagnetize the strips on all your credit cards,
screw up the tracking on your television and use subspace field
harmonics to scratch any CD's you try to play.
It will give your ex-girlfriend your new phone number. It will mix
Kool-aid into your fishtank. It will drink all your beer and leave its
socks out on the coffee table when there's company coming over. It
will put a dead kitten in the back pocket of your good suit pants and
hide your car keys when you are late for work.
Goodtimes will make you fall in love with a penguin. It will give you
nightmares about circus midgets. It will pour sugar in your gas tank
and shave off both your eyebrows while dating your girlfriend behind
your back and billing the dinner and hotel room to your Discover
card.
It will seduce your grandmother. It does not matter if she is dead,
such is the power of Goodtimes, it reaches out beyond the grave to
sully those things we hold most dear.
It moves your car randomly around parking lots so you can't find it.
It will kick your dog. It will leave libidinous messages on your
boss's voice mail in your voice! It is insidious and subtle. It is
dangerous and terrifying to behold. It is also a rather interesting
shade of mauve.
Goodtimes will give you Dutch Elm disease. It will leave the toilet
seat up. It will make a batch of methamphetamine in your bathtub and
then leave bacon cooking on the stove while it goes out to chase
gradeschoolers with your new snowblower.
Listen to me. Goodtimes does not exist.
It cannot do anything to you. But I can. I am sending this message to
everyone in the world. Tell your friends, tell your family. If anyone
else sends me another E-mail about this fake Goodtimes Virus, I will
turn hating them into a religion. I will do things to them that would
make a horsehead in your bed look like Easter Sunday brunch.
Date: 11-31-88 (24:60) Number: 32769
To: ALL Refer#: NONE
From: ROBERT MORRIS III Read: (N/A)
Subj: VIRUS ALERT Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE
Warning: There's a new virus on the loose that's worse than anything
I've seen before! It gets in through the power line, riding on the
powerline 60 Hz subcarrier. It works by changing the serial port
pinouts, and by reversing the direction one's disks spin. Over 300,000
systems have been hit by it here in Murphy, West Dakota alone! And
that's just in the last 12 minutes.
It attacks DOS, Unix, TOPS-20, Apple-II, VMS, MVS, Multics, Mac,
RSX-11, ITS, TRS-80, and VHS systems.
To prevent the spresd of the worm:
1) Don't use the powerline.
2) Don't use batteries either, since there are rumors that this virus
has invaded most major battery plants and is infecting the positive
poles of the batteries. (You might try hooking up just the negative
pole.)
3) Don't upload or download files.
4) Don't store files on floppy disks or hard disks.
5) Don't read messages. Not even this one!
6) Don't use serial ports, modems, or phone lines.
7) Don't use keyboards, screens, or printers.
8) Don't use switches, CPUs, memories, microprocessors, or
mainframes.
9) Don't use electric lights, electric or gas heat or airconditioning,
running water, writing, fire, clothing or the
wheel.
I'm sure if we are all careful to follow these 9 easy steps, this
virus can be eradicated, and the precious electronic fluids of our
computers can be kept pure.
---RTM III